xref: /linux/Documentation/PCI/pci.rst (revision 87c9c16317882dd6dbbc07e349bc3223e14f3244)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3==============================
4How To Write Linux PCI Drivers
5==============================
6
7:Authors: - Martin Mares <mj@ucw.cz>
8          - Grant Grundler <grundler@parisc-linux.org>
9
10The world of PCI is vast and full of (mostly unpleasant) surprises.
11Since each CPU architecture implements different chip-sets and PCI devices
12have different requirements (erm, "features"), the result is the PCI support
13in the Linux kernel is not as trivial as one would wish. This short paper
14tries to introduce all potential driver authors to Linux APIs for
15PCI device drivers.
16
17A more complete resource is the third edition of "Linux Device Drivers"
18by Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman.
19LDD3 is available for free (under Creative Commons License) from:
20https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/.
21
22However, keep in mind that all documents are subject to "bit rot".
23Refer to the source code if things are not working as described here.
24
25Please send questions/comments/patches about Linux PCI API to the
26"Linux PCI" <linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> mailing list.
27
28
29Structure of PCI drivers
30========================
31PCI drivers "discover" PCI devices in a system via pci_register_driver().
32Actually, it's the other way around. When the PCI generic code discovers
33a new device, the driver with a matching "description" will be notified.
34Details on this below.
35
36pci_register_driver() leaves most of the probing for devices to
37the PCI layer and supports online insertion/removal of devices [thus
38supporting hot-pluggable PCI, CardBus, and Express-Card in a single driver].
39pci_register_driver() call requires passing in a table of function
40pointers and thus dictates the high level structure of a driver.
41
42Once the driver knows about a PCI device and takes ownership, the
43driver generally needs to perform the following initialization:
44
45  - Enable the device
46  - Request MMIO/IOP resources
47  - Set the DMA mask size (for both coherent and streaming DMA)
48  - Allocate and initialize shared control data (pci_allocate_coherent())
49  - Access device configuration space (if needed)
50  - Register IRQ handler (request_irq())
51  - Initialize non-PCI (i.e. LAN/SCSI/etc parts of the chip)
52  - Enable DMA/processing engines
53
54When done using the device, and perhaps the module needs to be unloaded,
55the driver needs to take the follow steps:
56
57  - Disable the device from generating IRQs
58  - Release the IRQ (free_irq())
59  - Stop all DMA activity
60  - Release DMA buffers (both streaming and coherent)
61  - Unregister from other subsystems (e.g. scsi or netdev)
62  - Release MMIO/IOP resources
63  - Disable the device
64
65Most of these topics are covered in the following sections.
66For the rest look at LDD3 or <linux/pci.h> .
67
68If the PCI subsystem is not configured (CONFIG_PCI is not set), most of
69the PCI functions described below are defined as inline functions either
70completely empty or just returning an appropriate error codes to avoid
71lots of ifdefs in the drivers.
72
73
74pci_register_driver() call
75==========================
76
77PCI device drivers call ``pci_register_driver()`` during their
78initialization with a pointer to a structure describing the driver
79(``struct pci_driver``):
80
81.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/pci.h
82   :functions: pci_driver
83
84The ID table is an array of ``struct pci_device_id`` entries ending with an
85all-zero entry.  Definitions with static const are generally preferred.
86
87.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/mod_devicetable.h
88   :functions: pci_device_id
89
90Most drivers only need ``PCI_DEVICE()`` or ``PCI_DEVICE_CLASS()`` to set up
91a pci_device_id table.
92
93New PCI IDs may be added to a device driver pci_ids table at runtime
94as shown below::
95
96  echo "vendor device subvendor subdevice class class_mask driver_data" > \
97  /sys/bus/pci/drivers/{driver}/new_id
98
99All fields are passed in as hexadecimal values (no leading 0x).
100The vendor and device fields are mandatory, the others are optional. Users
101need pass only as many optional fields as necessary:
102
103  - subvendor and subdevice fields default to PCI_ANY_ID (FFFFFFFF)
104  - class and classmask fields default to 0
105  - driver_data defaults to 0UL.
106
107Note that driver_data must match the value used by any of the pci_device_id
108entries defined in the driver. This makes the driver_data field mandatory
109if all the pci_device_id entries have a non-zero driver_data value.
110
111Once added, the driver probe routine will be invoked for any unclaimed
112PCI devices listed in its (newly updated) pci_ids list.
113
114When the driver exits, it just calls pci_unregister_driver() and the PCI layer
115automatically calls the remove hook for all devices handled by the driver.
116
117
118"Attributes" for driver functions/data
119--------------------------------------
120
121Please mark the initialization and cleanup functions where appropriate
122(the corresponding macros are defined in <linux/init.h>):
123
124	======		=================================================
125	__init		Initialization code. Thrown away after the driver
126			initializes.
127	__exit		Exit code. Ignored for non-modular drivers.
128	======		=================================================
129
130Tips on when/where to use the above attributes:
131	- The module_init()/module_exit() functions (and all
132	  initialization functions called _only_ from these)
133	  should be marked __init/__exit.
134
135	- Do not mark the struct pci_driver.
136
137	- Do NOT mark a function if you are not sure which mark to use.
138	  Better to not mark the function than mark the function wrong.
139
140
141How to find PCI devices manually
142================================
143
144PCI drivers should have a really good reason for not using the
145pci_register_driver() interface to search for PCI devices.
146The main reason PCI devices are controlled by multiple drivers
147is because one PCI device implements several different HW services.
148E.g. combined serial/parallel port/floppy controller.
149
150A manual search may be performed using the following constructs:
151
152Searching by vendor and device ID::
153
154	struct pci_dev *dev = NULL;
155	while (dev = pci_get_device(VENDOR_ID, DEVICE_ID, dev))
156		configure_device(dev);
157
158Searching by class ID (iterate in a similar way)::
159
160	pci_get_class(CLASS_ID, dev)
161
162Searching by both vendor/device and subsystem vendor/device ID::
163
164	pci_get_subsys(VENDOR_ID,DEVICE_ID, SUBSYS_VENDOR_ID, SUBSYS_DEVICE_ID, dev).
165
166You can use the constant PCI_ANY_ID as a wildcard replacement for
167VENDOR_ID or DEVICE_ID.  This allows searching for any device from a
168specific vendor, for example.
169
170These functions are hotplug-safe. They increment the reference count on
171the pci_dev that they return. You must eventually (possibly at module unload)
172decrement the reference count on these devices by calling pci_dev_put().
173
174
175Device Initialization Steps
176===========================
177
178As noted in the introduction, most PCI drivers need the following steps
179for device initialization:
180
181  - Enable the device
182  - Request MMIO/IOP resources
183  - Set the DMA mask size (for both coherent and streaming DMA)
184  - Allocate and initialize shared control data (pci_allocate_coherent())
185  - Access device configuration space (if needed)
186  - Register IRQ handler (request_irq())
187  - Initialize non-PCI (i.e. LAN/SCSI/etc parts of the chip)
188  - Enable DMA/processing engines.
189
190The driver can access PCI config space registers at any time.
191(Well, almost. When running BIST, config space can go away...but
192that will just result in a PCI Bus Master Abort and config reads
193will return garbage).
194
195
196Enable the PCI device
197---------------------
198Before touching any device registers, the driver needs to enable
199the PCI device by calling pci_enable_device(). This will:
200
201  - wake up the device if it was in suspended state,
202  - allocate I/O and memory regions of the device (if BIOS did not),
203  - allocate an IRQ (if BIOS did not).
204
205.. note::
206   pci_enable_device() can fail! Check the return value.
207
208.. warning::
209   OS BUG: we don't check resource allocations before enabling those
210   resources. The sequence would make more sense if we called
211   pci_request_resources() before calling pci_enable_device().
212   Currently, the device drivers can't detect the bug when two
213   devices have been allocated the same range. This is not a common
214   problem and unlikely to get fixed soon.
215
216   This has been discussed before but not changed as of 2.6.19:
217   https://lore.kernel.org/r/20060302180025.GC28895@flint.arm.linux.org.uk/
218
219
220pci_set_master() will enable DMA by setting the bus master bit
221in the PCI_COMMAND register. It also fixes the latency timer value if
222it's set to something bogus by the BIOS.  pci_clear_master() will
223disable DMA by clearing the bus master bit.
224
225If the PCI device can use the PCI Memory-Write-Invalidate transaction,
226call pci_set_mwi().  This enables the PCI_COMMAND bit for Mem-Wr-Inval
227and also ensures that the cache line size register is set correctly.
228Check the return value of pci_set_mwi() as not all architectures
229or chip-sets may support Memory-Write-Invalidate.  Alternatively,
230if Mem-Wr-Inval would be nice to have but is not required, call
231pci_try_set_mwi() to have the system do its best effort at enabling
232Mem-Wr-Inval.
233
234
235Request MMIO/IOP resources
236--------------------------
237Memory (MMIO), and I/O port addresses should NOT be read directly
238from the PCI device config space. Use the values in the pci_dev structure
239as the PCI "bus address" might have been remapped to a "host physical"
240address by the arch/chip-set specific kernel support.
241
242See Documentation/driver-api/io-mapping.rst for how to access device registers
243or device memory.
244
245The device driver needs to call pci_request_region() to verify
246no other device is already using the same address resource.
247Conversely, drivers should call pci_release_region() AFTER
248calling pci_disable_device().
249The idea is to prevent two devices colliding on the same address range.
250
251.. tip::
252   See OS BUG comment above. Currently (2.6.19), The driver can only
253   determine MMIO and IO Port resource availability _after_ calling
254   pci_enable_device().
255
256Generic flavors of pci_request_region() are request_mem_region()
257(for MMIO ranges) and request_region() (for IO Port ranges).
258Use these for address resources that are not described by "normal" PCI
259BARs.
260
261Also see pci_request_selected_regions() below.
262
263
264Set the DMA mask size
265---------------------
266.. note::
267   If anything below doesn't make sense, please refer to
268   :doc:`/core-api/dma-api`. This section is just a reminder that
269   drivers need to indicate DMA capabilities of the device and is not
270   an authoritative source for DMA interfaces.
271
272While all drivers should explicitly indicate the DMA capability
273(e.g. 32 or 64 bit) of the PCI bus master, devices with more than
27432-bit bus master capability for streaming data need the driver
275to "register" this capability by calling pci_set_dma_mask() with
276appropriate parameters.  In general this allows more efficient DMA
277on systems where System RAM exists above 4G _physical_ address.
278
279Drivers for all PCI-X and PCIe compliant devices must call
280pci_set_dma_mask() as they are 64-bit DMA devices.
281
282Similarly, drivers must also "register" this capability if the device
283can directly address "consistent memory" in System RAM above 4G physical
284address by calling pci_set_consistent_dma_mask().
285Again, this includes drivers for all PCI-X and PCIe compliant devices.
286Many 64-bit "PCI" devices (before PCI-X) and some PCI-X devices are
28764-bit DMA capable for payload ("streaming") data but not control
288("consistent") data.
289
290
291Setup shared control data
292-------------------------
293Once the DMA masks are set, the driver can allocate "consistent" (a.k.a. shared)
294memory.  See :doc:`/core-api/dma-api` for a full description of
295the DMA APIs. This section is just a reminder that it needs to be done
296before enabling DMA on the device.
297
298
299Initialize device registers
300---------------------------
301Some drivers will need specific "capability" fields programmed
302or other "vendor specific" register initialized or reset.
303E.g. clearing pending interrupts.
304
305
306Register IRQ handler
307--------------------
308While calling request_irq() is the last step described here,
309this is often just another intermediate step to initialize a device.
310This step can often be deferred until the device is opened for use.
311
312All interrupt handlers for IRQ lines should be registered with IRQF_SHARED
313and use the devid to map IRQs to devices (remember that all PCI IRQ lines
314can be shared).
315
316request_irq() will associate an interrupt handler and device handle
317with an interrupt number. Historically interrupt numbers represent
318IRQ lines which run from the PCI device to the Interrupt controller.
319With MSI and MSI-X (more below) the interrupt number is a CPU "vector".
320
321request_irq() also enables the interrupt. Make sure the device is
322quiesced and does not have any interrupts pending before registering
323the interrupt handler.
324
325MSI and MSI-X are PCI capabilities. Both are "Message Signaled Interrupts"
326which deliver interrupts to the CPU via a DMA write to a Local APIC.
327The fundamental difference between MSI and MSI-X is how multiple
328"vectors" get allocated. MSI requires contiguous blocks of vectors
329while MSI-X can allocate several individual ones.
330
331MSI capability can be enabled by calling pci_alloc_irq_vectors() with the
332PCI_IRQ_MSI and/or PCI_IRQ_MSIX flags before calling request_irq(). This
333causes the PCI support to program CPU vector data into the PCI device
334capability registers. Many architectures, chip-sets, or BIOSes do NOT
335support MSI or MSI-X and a call to pci_alloc_irq_vectors with just
336the PCI_IRQ_MSI and PCI_IRQ_MSIX flags will fail, so try to always
337specify PCI_IRQ_LEGACY as well.
338
339Drivers that have different interrupt handlers for MSI/MSI-X and
340legacy INTx should chose the right one based on the msi_enabled
341and msix_enabled flags in the pci_dev structure after calling
342pci_alloc_irq_vectors.
343
344There are (at least) two really good reasons for using MSI:
345
3461) MSI is an exclusive interrupt vector by definition.
347   This means the interrupt handler doesn't have to verify
348   its device caused the interrupt.
349
3502) MSI avoids DMA/IRQ race conditions. DMA to host memory is guaranteed
351   to be visible to the host CPU(s) when the MSI is delivered. This
352   is important for both data coherency and avoiding stale control data.
353   This guarantee allows the driver to omit MMIO reads to flush
354   the DMA stream.
355
356See drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/ or drivers/net/tg3.c for examples
357of MSI/MSI-X usage.
358
359
360PCI device shutdown
361===================
362
363When a PCI device driver is being unloaded, most of the following
364steps need to be performed:
365
366  - Disable the device from generating IRQs
367  - Release the IRQ (free_irq())
368  - Stop all DMA activity
369  - Release DMA buffers (both streaming and consistent)
370  - Unregister from other subsystems (e.g. scsi or netdev)
371  - Disable device from responding to MMIO/IO Port addresses
372  - Release MMIO/IO Port resource(s)
373
374
375Stop IRQs on the device
376-----------------------
377How to do this is chip/device specific. If it's not done, it opens
378the possibility of a "screaming interrupt" if (and only if)
379the IRQ is shared with another device.
380
381When the shared IRQ handler is "unhooked", the remaining devices
382using the same IRQ line will still need the IRQ enabled. Thus if the
383"unhooked" device asserts IRQ line, the system will respond assuming
384it was one of the remaining devices asserted the IRQ line. Since none
385of the other devices will handle the IRQ, the system will "hang" until
386it decides the IRQ isn't going to get handled and masks the IRQ (100,000
387iterations later). Once the shared IRQ is masked, the remaining devices
388will stop functioning properly. Not a nice situation.
389
390This is another reason to use MSI or MSI-X if it's available.
391MSI and MSI-X are defined to be exclusive interrupts and thus
392are not susceptible to the "screaming interrupt" problem.
393
394
395Release the IRQ
396---------------
397Once the device is quiesced (no more IRQs), one can call free_irq().
398This function will return control once any pending IRQs are handled,
399"unhook" the drivers IRQ handler from that IRQ, and finally release
400the IRQ if no one else is using it.
401
402
403Stop all DMA activity
404---------------------
405It's extremely important to stop all DMA operations BEFORE attempting
406to deallocate DMA control data. Failure to do so can result in memory
407corruption, hangs, and on some chip-sets a hard crash.
408
409Stopping DMA after stopping the IRQs can avoid races where the
410IRQ handler might restart DMA engines.
411
412While this step sounds obvious and trivial, several "mature" drivers
413didn't get this step right in the past.
414
415
416Release DMA buffers
417-------------------
418Once DMA is stopped, clean up streaming DMA first.
419I.e. unmap data buffers and return buffers to "upstream"
420owners if there is one.
421
422Then clean up "consistent" buffers which contain the control data.
423
424See :doc:`/core-api/dma-api` for details on unmapping interfaces.
425
426
427Unregister from other subsystems
428--------------------------------
429Most low level PCI device drivers support some other subsystem
430like USB, ALSA, SCSI, NetDev, Infiniband, etc. Make sure your
431driver isn't losing resources from that other subsystem.
432If this happens, typically the symptom is an Oops (panic) when
433the subsystem attempts to call into a driver that has been unloaded.
434
435
436Disable Device from responding to MMIO/IO Port addresses
437--------------------------------------------------------
438io_unmap() MMIO or IO Port resources and then call pci_disable_device().
439This is the symmetric opposite of pci_enable_device().
440Do not access device registers after calling pci_disable_device().
441
442
443Release MMIO/IO Port Resource(s)
444--------------------------------
445Call pci_release_region() to mark the MMIO or IO Port range as available.
446Failure to do so usually results in the inability to reload the driver.
447
448
449How to access PCI config space
450==============================
451
452You can use `pci_(read|write)_config_(byte|word|dword)` to access the config
453space of a device represented by `struct pci_dev *`. All these functions return
4540 when successful or an error code (`PCIBIOS_...`) which can be translated to a
455text string by pcibios_strerror. Most drivers expect that accesses to valid PCI
456devices don't fail.
457
458If you don't have a struct pci_dev available, you can call
459`pci_bus_(read|write)_config_(byte|word|dword)` to access a given device
460and function on that bus.
461
462If you access fields in the standard portion of the config header, please
463use symbolic names of locations and bits declared in <linux/pci.h>.
464
465If you need to access Extended PCI Capability registers, just call
466pci_find_capability() for the particular capability and it will find the
467corresponding register block for you.
468
469
470Other interesting functions
471===========================
472
473=============================	================================================
474pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot()	Find pci_dev corresponding to given domain,
475				bus and slot and number. If the device is
476				found, its reference count is increased.
477pci_set_power_state()		Set PCI Power Management state (0=D0 ... 3=D3)
478pci_find_capability()		Find specified capability in device's capability
479				list.
480pci_resource_start()		Returns bus start address for a given PCI region
481pci_resource_end()		Returns bus end address for a given PCI region
482pci_resource_len()		Returns the byte length of a PCI region
483pci_set_drvdata()		Set private driver data pointer for a pci_dev
484pci_get_drvdata()		Return private driver data pointer for a pci_dev
485pci_set_mwi()			Enable Memory-Write-Invalidate transactions.
486pci_clear_mwi()			Disable Memory-Write-Invalidate transactions.
487=============================	================================================
488
489
490Miscellaneous hints
491===================
492
493When displaying PCI device names to the user (for example when a driver wants
494to tell the user what card has it found), please use pci_name(pci_dev).
495
496Always refer to the PCI devices by a pointer to the pci_dev structure.
497All PCI layer functions use this identification and it's the only
498reasonable one. Don't use bus/slot/function numbers except for very
499special purposes -- on systems with multiple primary buses their semantics
500can be pretty complex.
501
502Don't try to turn on Fast Back to Back writes in your driver.  All devices
503on the bus need to be capable of doing it, so this is something which needs
504to be handled by platform and generic code, not individual drivers.
505
506
507Vendor and device identifications
508=================================
509
510Do not add new device or vendor IDs to include/linux/pci_ids.h unless they
511are shared across multiple drivers.  You can add private definitions in
512your driver if they're helpful, or just use plain hex constants.
513
514The device IDs are arbitrary hex numbers (vendor controlled) and normally used
515only in a single location, the pci_device_id table.
516
517Please DO submit new vendor/device IDs to https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/.
518There's a mirror of the pci.ids file at https://github.com/pciutils/pciids.
519
520
521Obsolete functions
522==================
523
524There are several functions which you might come across when trying to
525port an old driver to the new PCI interface.  They are no longer present
526in the kernel as they aren't compatible with hotplug or PCI domains or
527having sane locking.
528
529=================	===========================================
530pci_find_device()	Superseded by pci_get_device()
531pci_find_subsys()	Superseded by pci_get_subsys()
532pci_find_slot()		Superseded by pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot()
533pci_get_slot()		Superseded by pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot()
534=================	===========================================
535
536The alternative is the traditional PCI device driver that walks PCI
537device lists. This is still possible but discouraged.
538
539
540MMIO Space and "Write Posting"
541==============================
542
543Converting a driver from using I/O Port space to using MMIO space
544often requires some additional changes. Specifically, "write posting"
545needs to be handled. Many drivers (e.g. tg3, acenic, sym53c8xx_2)
546already do this. I/O Port space guarantees write transactions reach the PCI
547device before the CPU can continue. Writes to MMIO space allow the CPU
548to continue before the transaction reaches the PCI device. HW weenies
549call this "Write Posting" because the write completion is "posted" to
550the CPU before the transaction has reached its destination.
551
552Thus, timing sensitive code should add readl() where the CPU is
553expected to wait before doing other work.  The classic "bit banging"
554sequence works fine for I/O Port space::
555
556       for (i = 8; --i; val >>= 1) {
557               outb(val & 1, ioport_reg);      /* write bit */
558               udelay(10);
559       }
560
561The same sequence for MMIO space should be::
562
563       for (i = 8; --i; val >>= 1) {
564               writeb(val & 1, mmio_reg);      /* write bit */
565               readb(safe_mmio_reg);           /* flush posted write */
566               udelay(10);
567       }
568
569It is important that "safe_mmio_reg" not have any side effects that
570interferes with the correct operation of the device.
571
572Another case to watch out for is when resetting a PCI device. Use PCI
573Configuration space reads to flush the writel(). This will gracefully
574handle the PCI master abort on all platforms if the PCI device is
575expected to not respond to a readl().  Most x86 platforms will allow
576MMIO reads to master abort (a.k.a. "Soft Fail") and return garbage
577(e.g. ~0). But many RISC platforms will crash (a.k.a."Hard Fail").
578